


Fess up

by Scott_Paladin



Category: Avatar: Legend of Korra
Genre: F/F, Fluffy, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-24
Updated: 2015-02-24
Packaged: 2018-03-14 22:16:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,483
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3427532
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Scott_Paladin/pseuds/Scott_Paladin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>On a lazy afternoon, Korra and Asami talk about some personal firsts.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fess up

Spring always brought drifts of white fur when Naga’s winter coat shed. It floated on the little currents of air and settled on everything, standing out on every surface. The only solution was brushing with an undercoat rake, hours and hours of work over several sessions. It wouldn’t stop all of the fur, but it did keep them from drowning on it.

Korra sat in the courtyard of Sato Manor with Naga’s huge tail in her lap, pulling the rake over and over through the fur. Asami was ostensibly helping, working at the other end of the polar bear dog, but she seemed to be doing a bit more petting and ear scratching than actual combing.

The game had started hours ago, merely a way to pass the time as they took care of the tedious task. Questions back and forth, a game of conversational chicken. Points were awarded for refusals to answer, and it was Asami’s turn.

“First kiss.”

Korra winced in embarrassment, then sighed. “Mako.” She got an arched eyebrow from her girlfriend in response. “What do you expect? I grew up in a White Lotus compound at the south pole; I didn’t get out much and options were pretty thin on the ground.”

Asami’s laugh rang over the sound of the wind in the leaves. “I wonder how many people realize the mighty Avatar Korra didn’t kiss anybody until she was eighteen.”

Korra could feel her cheeks burning. “Well, just you and my mom so far. Anyway, who was yours?”

Asami’s green eyes stared up at the branches above her for several seconds before answering. “Junzo, the son of one of the vice presidents of Future Industries. I was fifteen and it was at a company party. My dad caught us and I got in huge trouble.”

Korra smirked and decided Naga’s tail was as finished as it would be during this session. She scooted over to start work on her front leg. “Well, if we ever see this Junzo character, do I need to be worried?”

“Nope. He’s a married man now and he never really was my type.” Asami leaned over and brushed her lips along Korra’s cheek. “Besides, who could match up to the avatar?”

“I don’t know. I can think of one girl who’s more than a match.”

Asami smiled and started to pull the rake through the fur of Naga's neck. “OK, you’re up.”

The avatar thought for a moment, trying to think of something she actually wanted to know the answer to. “Well, who was your first crush?”

Her girlfriend sat placidly, pulling fluffy white undercoat out in little tufts. “You get a point; I’m not answering.”

Korra’s ears perked. This was Asami’s first refusal of the game. “What? Really?”

“Yep.”

Now she never wanted to know anything more badly in her life. “Aw come on, I’ll tell you mine.”

“I’m sure you would, but I can’t say.” She was refusing the make eye contact. Were the tips of her ears turning red?

“It’s not bad is it? Should I be worried?”

Asami rolled her eyes. “No, it’s just…” She chewed her lip for a moment. “It’s makes me look like a loser.”

“Well, this is no fair.” Korra crossed her arms in a huff. “Now I have to know.”

“What? That’s not how the game works.”

“Screw the game. You can’t say something like that and then hold out on me. You’re always so poised, so together. I want to know about loser Asami.”

“Oh, just drop it.”

“It can’t be worse than mine.” Korra turned and leaned back against the polar bear dog’s side, her task suddenly forgotten. She let that hang in the air for a long while, then silently cursed when Asami didn’t rise to the bait. She craned to her head to look up at the other’s face. Time to tease. “It involves poetry.”

Asami’s brow arched in disbelief. “No way.”

“If you don’t want to know…” Korra turned her face back toward the lush manicured lawns, letting the insinuation trail off.

A low growl of frustration came from behind. “Fine, you go first and then I’ll tell.”

Korra laughed. “Oh man, this was a dark time. I was about thirteen. I’d just start training really  hard in firebending, so they brought in a new team of sparring partners. One of them was Rika. In my memory she was this really mature older woman but looking back I think she couldn’t have been more than eighteen or nineteen.

“Anyway, I thought she was just the coolest person I’d ever seen. She was elegant and all the White Lotus guys were sort of scared of her. I didn’t really understand what I was feeling. But when we used to spar, I’d get really nervous and trip over myself, forget basic moves and stuff. Just abysmal. It got so bad the powers-that-be decided to transfer her, since it seemed like she was messing my training. When I heard about it, I stayed up for nights trying to figure out what to do. I ended up writing her this letter. It was about half a page trying to play it really cool. ‘It’s regrettable you have to have to go’ and ‘I enjoyed our sparring sessions’. Then I just gave up and finished it with a half page long awful sappy poem about how I was going to miss her and how she was unlike anybody I'd ever met. I snuck it into her luggage the night before she left and, thankfully, never heard her reaction to it.”

“I’m sure she was flattered.”

“Or just confused. Spirits, I still have nightmares that one of the papers gets a hold of that letter and prints it.”

Asami laughed. “Bad poetry is a teenage rite of passage.”

Korra rolled over, crossed her arms on Naga’s back, and propped her chin on them. “OK, enough stalling. Fess up.”

Asami’s mouth tightened into a line. “No judging, right?”

“I swear, nothing you could say would make me see you any different.”

She took a deep breath. “When I was little, my mom used to tell me stories of Avatar Aang, how he defeated the Fire Lord and saved the world. They were my favorite bedtime stories. One day I asked about meeting him and she told me he’d died. Naturally, I was really sad, but she told me that the avatar gets reborn. In fact, the new one had just been found in the south pole. She showed me a newspaper clipping with a photo of a little girl about my age. I was so entranced by it that I hung it on my wall.”

Korra opened her mouth to speak but a raised hand from Asami stopped her.

“It seemed so cool that the great and mighty avatar was actually just this kid like me. I didn’t have any siblings or really any friends. I used to make up stories that me and the new avatar would go on adventures together, that she was my friend. I wanted to be strong like her, to always know the right thing to do like I imagined she did.” She was quiet for a moment, then her eyes found Korra’s again. “Do you remember a reported interviewing you when you ten?”

Korra nodded.

“I may have read the article over and over until I memorized it. In fact, it’s up in a box in my old room.” She indicated toward the manor house with on hand. “Along with probably every article ever written about you.”

She looked back at girlfiend and made a strange, slightly pained expression. “You were my first crush, Korra. Or well, the idea I had of you or something. It’s not like I really knew you or…”

In a rush, Korra was on her, hands holding her face, lips pressed to hers. When the kiss broke, Korra pressed her forehead to Asami’s and smiled. “Why on earth did you think that made you sound like a loser?”

“You know, lonely little rich girl, going on imaginary adventures with somebody she’s never met. It just sounds so…”

“Incredibly sweet. I’m jealous.” Korra kissed her again. “In fact, I have to change my answer.”

Asami pulled back a little to look at her, brows knit together in confusion. “What?”

“Yep, I don’t think I knew what a real crush was before. Because I think I’m getting my first real crush right now. I have just found this really adorable loser right here and I am crushing hard on her.”

After another long kiss, Asami found herself laying back on the grass, her face nestled into the crook of her girlfiend’s neck. She smiled into the dark skin and hugged her tightly. “For what it’s worth, you’re actually better than I imagined.”

Korra smiled up at the leaves overhead. “Well, who could match up to the avatar?”


End file.
